


The Two Sisters

by Luzula



Category: English and Scottish Popular Ballads - Child
Genre: F/F, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:09:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There lived a farmer in the north country, and he had two daughters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Two Sisters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Measured_Words](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/gifts).
  * Translation into Svenska available: [De två systrarna](https://archiveofourown.org/works/83168) by [Luzula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luzula/pseuds/Luzula)



> This is a femslash version of the Child ballad _The Twa Sisters_, also known as _Binnorie_ or _The Bonny Swans_ (no incest, though). I'm grateful to [](http://sionnain.livejournal.com/profile)[**sionnain**](http://sionnain.livejournal.com/), [](http://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**jesse_the_k**](http://jesse-the-k.dreamwidth.org/) and my sister for beta reading. You don't need any canon knowledge to read it.

There lived a farmer in the north country, and he had two daughters. One was dark, with hair black as a raven's wing, and one was fair, with golden hair the color of wheat in late summer.

They weren't really sisters, of course. You might have guessed that already, they being so different.

The mother of the fair-haired girl had died, and her father had married another woman. It was not that he didn't grieve for his wife, but life had to go on for the living. The farm was too much for him to handle on his own, what with the crops and the cows, and his daughter, who needed a mother to bring her up.

The woman he married was a widow herself, and she already had a daughter, dark as she herself was. Folks in the village shook their heads over this. She'd be bound to favor her own daughter, and neglect the other one, and the two girls would never get along.

But they did get along, and they were as close as two sisters could be. Closer, even.

They were always together, the fair head bent down together with the dark one as they sat with their needlework, talking in low tones. Their mother would hear them laugh together while she cooked supper in the kitchen, and be grateful that her daughter had found such a friend.

The girls shared a chamber up along the rafters of the house, where the wind blew cold and in the wintertime. One sister would cast aside her blankets, put her feet down on the chilly floor with a shiver, and tiptoe over to the other girl's bed. This was not necessarily anything unusual, even for the village gossips, because a shared bed was warmer than a single one.

But if they could have heard the words the girls whispered to each other at night, there would have been talk indeed. If they could have seen the unlacing of nightgowns, and the meeting of their lips, and their hair mingling on the pillow, there would have been a scandal.

The girls were not fools, and they only did these things in the dark, where no one would see. In the daytime, only the fond looks that passed between them could have betrayed them, but their fondness was only taken to be that of sisters.

But something came between them, and it was a boy.

He much admired the dark-haired girl, and would give her flowers and take her walking along the fields and woods. She was flattered and pleased at the attention, and neglected her sister more and more. Bitterness grew in the fair-haired girl's heart.

Their mother shook her head, seeing how they were at odds. She could see it was the boy driving them apart, but she was not wise enough to see the whole of it. Well, they have to marry some time, she thought, but it's a pity they should set their hearts on the same boy.

One morning in spring, the two sisters went down to the river to do the washing. It was a cold river, and fast, flowing down from the snow-covered mountains in a rush of deep water. Ever since she was a small child, the fair-haired sister had been warned not to go down to the river, for she might fall in and drown. But they were both old enough now to be trusted with the washing on their own.

The air was full of the noise of the river, high in its banks with the spring melt. But it could not drown out the sound of the girls' quarrel. Hard words were spoken, and there was bitterness on both sides. They were too caught up in their quarreling to mind the danger, and so it was that the fair-haired sister slipped on a stone and fell into the icy water.

The dark-haired girl cried out and reached for her, for although she was at odds with her sister, she still loved her. But it was too late, and she was left alone on the shore, regretting that she had ever thought to choose the boy over her sister.

The fair-haired girl could not swim and so she drowned, and the rushing water carried her far away. Sometimes she sank, sometimes she swam, until the river reached the plains where it grew broad and slow. Her long hair tangled in the branches of a willow by the shore. The fishes ate her flesh, and the ravens pecked at her eyes, until there was nothing left but her white bones on the bottom of the river, and her golden hair, twined in the branches and flowing in the water like seaweed.

When summer came, a harper passed by on the shore, and saw the gleaming of her hair in the sun. On the bottom of the river he saw the white bones, calling to him, and he waded into the water and carried them out. Patiently, he unraveled the tangled golden locks from the willow, because he could see that they had something to say.

The harper took her breastbone and made it into the body of a harp. He twined her hair into strings, and shaped her ribs to support them, and made her delicate finger bones into pins for the tuning. When he was done, he tuned the harp and played her, and it was the sweetest-sounding harp in all the land.

He was a traveling harper who played for food and board, and for anyone who would pay him. Many were the feasts and fairs where he played that summer. But although the harp played sweet and true, it kept silent, and he did not find out what it had to say.

In the autumn as the leaves turned gold, the same color as the strings in the harp, the harper traveled up the river, to the small villages lying in the foothills of the mountains. When he stopped in one of the villages, there was a wedding being prepared, and he offered to stay there and play.

As you might have guessed already, it was the dark-haired sister who was to marry. Although she grieved bitterly for her love who had drowned, she had agreed to marry the boy who courted her. She liked him well enough, and his father owned one of the largest farms in the village.

The whole village was there for the wedding, and many friends and relatives from other villages besides. It was to be a splendid affair, and the bride's dress was white as snow and embroidered with real pearls, although she perhaps did not look as happy as a bride ought.

The harper chose a merry tune to play, as befits a wedding, but when he plucked the first few strings, they came out in a minor key. When she heard the harp, the blood drained from the bride's face, until she was as white as her wedding dress. She left her father's side and came up to the harper, taking the harp from his arms.

The harp spoke for her as it never had for the harper who made it. She played the tears from the eyes of those who listened, and the child from the mother's lap. She played the bark from the branches of the trees, and the water from out of the river.

But she could not play her love to life again.

When she had finished, she turned and left. She left her family and her bridegroom and her village. I don't know where she went, but I do know that she took the harp with her. In the years after, she was famous through all the land as a harper of great renown, and her songs and tunes touched the heart of all who listened.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very wide-spread ballad, not only in the British Isles, but also in Scandinavia (there are 125 listed variants in Sweden alone) and in America, where it found its way into bluegrass and American folk music (for example, Gillian Welch has recorded one version called _The Wind and Rain_). You can read more about the ballad [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Twa_Sisters).
> 
> My sister and I have performed one of the Swedish versions of this ballad together since we were kids, and sort of play-acted it out. I'm always the dark, evil sister (who is burned at the stake at the end of the version we sing). *g*
> 
> From what I've read, the historical background for this ballad is that the eldest sister always had to get married first, because of the rules for inheritance. So if there's an attachment between one man and a younger sister, he might be married off to the older sister instead, and thus the jealousy.
> 
> The lines where the dark-haired sister is playing the harp are inspired by another ballad, which is called _Harpans kraft_ (= the power of the harp) in Swedish. It's sort of an Orpheus and Eurydice story where someone plays a harp to convince Näcken, who lives at the bottom of the river, to let their lover go.


End file.
